iss1 A M I G A N A I R W A V E S ---------------------------- May 1988 Welcome to this first issue of Amigan Airwaves. Hopefully there will be more to follow but that depends, at least in part, on the response to this one....... I suppose that I was among the first to use an Amiga for amateur radio in the UK. I bought the A1000 in December 1986, my very first computer! I joined the UK Amiga User Group straight away realising that I had a `tiger by the tail' and needed all the help I could get! They provided me with copies of some PD Fish Disks which included Starterm which I hoped to be able to use with the PK 232 which arrived in February 1987. After much experimentation, and with my `L' plates on, I began operation on packet, Amtor and RTTY soon afterwards. It soon became evident that no-one else seemed to be using the Amiga; several of my contacts said that they had never even heard of it! A month or two afterwards, I spotted a very small paragraph in the US magazine QST which had been put in by Kathy Wehr WB3KRN, asking for Amiga owners using their machine for amateur radio to contact her. This was the start of an exchange of correspondence which took place during the next 6-8 months during which time her group of Amiga enthusiasts in the States grew to about 100, but I was still the only European on her list. In the meantime, the A500 had been launched and was selling well, by all accounts, particularly in the UK and Germany. I therefore told Kathy that I would write to the RSGB and the DARC and ask them to publicise her group and, hopefully, increase her overseas membership. What neither Kathy nor I had anticipated was the extent of the response to the articles in Radcom and the DARC magazine. You have all seen copies of my database listing and I also received letters from Spain and Australia. Kathy had letters requesting information about her Group from about 6 countries in Europe while at the same time, her Stateside membership had grown to more than 150. Whilst this explosion of interest in the Amiga is very gratifying, it does mean that Kathy can no longer cope and is asking for help. She has suggested that countries with more than about 10 members ought to set up their own associate groups and make their own arrangements for distribution of newsletters and PD disks etc. This seems sensible to me, but your views would be welcome....... Fortunately, I am now able to contact Kathy through the Amiga Net which meets on Sunday evenings at 2200 GMT on 14345 KHz and, as a result, she is up-to-date with the situation and very happy that the UK Group is getting itself organised. By the way, are you able to join, or listen in to this net? I have had many requests for copies of the 3 PD disks that Kathy sent over a few weeks ago. I have done my best to deal with these and apologise to those who, for various reasons, have had to wait a week or more for their copies. Sadly, the main reason has been that in the course of making numerous copies of these disks, I caught the dreaded virus..... Not the SCA virus which puts up a `jokey' message on the screen, but the more insidious `Byte Bandit' version which crashes programs after a random period of time, without warning, leaving you with a blank screen and an empty RAM. The lesson we must all learn is not to be complacent about this scourge. Use `Virus X' or one of the other virus checkers every time you boot up the machine. According to Popular Computing Weekly (May 12-18 issue), even more obscure strains may come along in the future; a sad reflection on some of the sick minds that seem to have nothing better to do. In conclusion, here are a few brief items of interest: PD Programs Kathy says that disk No. 4 is in preparation. I hope that we shall be able to send some programs of our own over to her in due course. I know that we have some programmers in our UK Group, for example, Wayne Plummer has already contributed a morse tutor in AmigaBasic and an early version of a CW receive program which some of you may like to experiment with. Andy Hewat is working on a satellite tracking program; what else are we going to be able to offer? Your experiences and problems in running the PD programs on disks 1-3 will be useful material for the next issue of Amigan Airwaves. Future Distribution Arrangements Newsletters: Charlie Morgan G0EIW (Issue Nos. 3 & 4 available) PD Disks: Andy Hewat G8NTH (Disks 1 - 3 available) Because of work and other commitments, my own future involvement in the activities of the Group will have to be limited to: (a) maintaining the database membership details up-to-date (b) keeping in contact with Kathy. (c) Attempting to produce future issues of Amigan Airwaves if you think that this is worthwhile. If 20M propagation fails, Ian, G6KHW has kindly offered to contact Kathy via Compuserve as necessary. Please do not forget to send a large SAE with sufficient return postage when writing to any of the above. I would like to think that we could manage without any form of subscription, but postage and envelopes are expensive. May I suggest that you send Charlie an SAE in advance (rather like your QSL sub-manager) so that as soon as the next newsletter is available, he can send it to you straight away. Skeds Would anyone be interested in a UK Amiga Net? I have already had the pleasure of speaking to Gail, G0GRK on 40M and also ON9CBF - yet another Amiga enthusiast! Any suggestions as to times, frequencies etc., to me please. For Your Diary The Commodore Show, Novotel, Hammersmith June 3,4,5. RSGB National Convention, NEC, Birmingham July 15,16,17. AmiEXPO, Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel, July 22,23,24. Magazines There seems to be a growing number of specialist Amiga magazines. I take the following on a regular basis: Amiga World Amazing Computing Amiga User International Now there is to be yet another launched - Your Amiga (first issue 20 May). I have not seen Amiga Sentry or Robo City News which are advertised by The Amiga Centre Scotland. I wonder how many others fell into the trap of paying an advance subscription for the ill-fated Enigma magazine? I understand that action by the police against this company is being considered, but don't bank on getting your money back. Reg, G1TEY, has drawn my attention to the specialist RSGB publication Connect International which appears to fulfil the need for more information about the fast-growing world of packet radio. Future Issues of Newsletters Kathy intends to produce about 4 issues of the Amigan Beacon per year. Future issues of Amigan Airwaves will depend on the response to this one and offers of material, in the form of articles, reviews of hardware, software, etc. or news items that you send in to me. That's all for this time, 73 de Bob G3LMH